


Grophet's Gambit - Searching

by DancingHare



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingHare/pseuds/DancingHare
Summary: Kazta searches the desert, and makes a friend? Maybe.





	Grophet's Gambit - Searching

She didn’t have a little drink with an umbrella, and the water was a little rusty, but it was a bath all the same, and it felt wonderful. Kazta had spent most of the day out on the open sand with the captain, searching for — well, she wasn’t exactly sure what. Any signs of the Imperial operation, something out of the ordinary, anything that could lead them in the right direction. So far they’d turned up absolutely nothing. Son was working on deciphering the tracking, but the signal was weak, and their location wasn’t helping matters any. Even getting to a higher point hadn’t seemed to help. They were running out of leads, fast. Reluctantly, Kazta let the water drain out of the makeshift tub, and dressed in the her light armor that she’d taken to wearing around the homestead. She really didn’t see what was wrong with it, it kept the sand out better than her armor, but still provided enough protection in the case of an unexpected attack. Shani and the jedi girl clucked their tongues as they looked her over, insisting that she needed something different. Kazta could not understand their reasoning — they said it was to look more like a girl, but she was certain that she was already one. But she agreed to visit the market with them, once their mission was over. It was hardly the right time to be looking for new clothing.

Kazta felt that their best lead was the two jedi who had arrived the other night. They were on the trail of a sith, and while it could be entirely unrelated to the Imperial operation here, Kazta thought the chance was slim. Wherever the Empire tread, the sith surely followed. He told her that the sith in question had been tracking and capturing victims, which was unusual for sith. Was he bringing more labor to the operation? The jedi confirmed that he and his padawan could sense the sith’s presence, though only within a limited range. He probably couldn’t lead them directly to the sith’s lair, unfortunately. But they would be safer — and stronger — together, and she tried to make that point clear. Eating their strange roasted meat over the fire, Kazta was surprised to feel an unexpected rapport with the jedi. Maybe if you got them off the topic of the force, they weren’t so different then herself.

The peace didn’t last long though, when he and the girl clashed over — well, she couldn’t even really be sure. It was jedi business, but his words resonated because they were close to what Kazta herself had said upon meeting the jedi girl. She was unbalanced, neither light nor dark, and she could be a danger to all of them, not just to their enemies. Looking at her, Kazta wasn’t sure if she believed that, but couldn’t a jedi see beneath the surface? They were dealing with things that she didn’t really understand, and she’d defer to his knowledge in that area. As it had when Kazta brought up her concerns, they turned on him with fangs bared, and Shani went so far as to eject him from the homestead, saying they didn’t need his help. Kazta believed that they did, but she knew better than to argue, especially when everyone was already on edge. Fortunately, the two jedi seemed to sort it out later, but Kazta was certain that it would only be a matter of time before someone else clashed. She was doing her best to ensure that it wouldn’t be her, but sometimes it was difficult to hold her tongue.

Not that Shani’s job was easy, Kazta knew that. Keeping a squad together, focused, and moving in the right direction was difficult, and this one was more diverse than most. Shani asked her if she’d made the right call, what she would have done in that situation. The best thing for getting a group to cooperate was to give them a goal, something to move toward together. Even if they fought at the start, by the end of the mission they would surely have at least a grudging respect for each other. Usually the bond went further than that, because they depended on one another to stay alive. This wasn’t that sort of crew, though. Shani said she would simply walk away rather than dealing with someone difficult, which surprised Kazta. She had thought there would be a lot of undesirable people in their line of work. But, she supposed, she could afford to be choosy. Still, Kazta thought of all those she would have missed out on knowing if she’d simply walked away the first time they butted heads. There were a lot of them.

They’d moved further into the homestead, and had actual beds to sleep on. They were comfortable, but Kazta found that she missed the privacy of the tent, and the sound of the wind rippling the canvas. It reminded her of those first training missions, when she’d been so eager to prove herself. She still was, but things were much more complicated now. Hopefully, tomorrow they would find something out among the dunes.


End file.
